Gray, Cecil

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Gray, Cecil (b Edinburgh, 1895; d Worthing, 1951). Scot. composer and critic. Settled in London 1915. Joint ed. with Philip Heseltine of periodical The Sackbut. Mus. critic Nation and Athenaeum 1925–30, Daily Telegraph 1928–32, Manchester Guardian 1932. Wrote 3 operas to his own libs.: Deirdre, Temptation of St Anthony, and The Trojan Women. Wrote lib. on Gesualdo for opera by Walton, but no mus. was comp. His reputation rests on his books, which incl. A Survey of Contemporary Music (1924), Carlo Gesualdo, Musician and Murderer (with P. Heseltine) (1926), History of Music (1928), Sibelius (1931), Peter Warlock (1934), Predicaments (1936), and Contingencies (1947).